Half-way up the ascent a resting-place was contrived for the
carriers. The projection upon which the baskets were lowered was
hardly three feet in width. Its edge dropped into darkness. Within
reach, leaves rustled from the summit of a tree rooted somewhere in
the chasm. The blackness below was vast and to be measured only by
the memory of that upward course. Gemmed by its lighted hamlets the
fair plain of the island lay, with Med and Melita glowing like lamps
to the huge dusk.
"St. George," said Amory soberly, "if it's all true--if these people
do understand what the world doesn't know anything about--"
"Yes," said St. George.
"It makes a man feel--"
"Yes," said St. George, "it does."
This, they afterward remembered, was all that they said on the
ascent. One wonders if two, being met among the "strengthless tribes
of the dead," would find much more to say.
Then they went on, scaling that invisible way, with the twinkling
feet of the carriers drawing upward like a thread of thin gold which
they were to climb.
Pages:
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306